Frank Portman - King Dork

I decided to ignore her interruptions and charge ahead, so I explained that we-met-at-a-party-in-Clearview-Heights-last-month, and tried to make it quick so it would fit in the brief space before she burst out with another interruption. I just about managed it, too, and I think the information finally penetrated, because her next question was quite to the point.

“And?”

Well, that was a tough one. So many different things could follow that “and.” And, I don’t know if you remember, but we made out on the couch when a telekinesis experiment went awry. And you wouldn’t let me go down your pants, going “my tits, my tits” instead, and I was wondering whether that was because of ladies’ week or was there some other reason? And you asked about my band’s gigs, and, well, it just so happens that we’re playing at the Festival of Lights in a few weeks, maybe you’d like to cut class at IHA and come? And I look fondly upon the special moments your left breast and I spent together, and I’d welcome the chance to pick up where we left off and get to know the rest of you better. And, though I doubt it’s something people generally say about just anybody whose nipple they happen to maul in a dark room at this or that fake mod stoner party, I have this dream where we’re imaginary boyfriend-girlfriend in a Sex Alliance Against Society. . . .

None of those answers to “And?” would have fit into one of Deanna-Fiona’s pauses, I knew that, and most of them 212

would have come off weird over the phone. So I said, as quickly as I could:

“I think we have some some matters to discuss, but I’d rather not do it over the phone. Maybe we could get together some time at your convenience if that would be be copasetic.”

Devil-head. Boy, did I ever feel like an idiot.

“You’re so professional, ” she said, giggling. I’m not sure what she meant, exactly, though it sounded sarcastic. I guess she wasn’t stoned enough to be quite as amused by my virtu-oso devil-headedness as she had been at the party. Then she said: “Are you asking me out, Tom-Tom?”

Was I? “Oh,” I said. “Oh. Um. Well. I mean . . .”

“You know, I have a boyfriend.”

“Right. Dave.”

“Tim.”

“Tim?”

“Tim.”

“Really?”

“Really. I think I would know.”

I could sense that this fascinating conversation was draw -

ing to a close, and I was trying to figure out a way to slip in a quick “well, nice talking to you, bye now,” to make her hanging up on me seem a bit less embarrassing, when she said, to my astonishment:

“Well, maybe you’d better come over, then.”

WHAT HAP P E N S WH E N YOU N E E D TO

G ET TO S LUT H EAVE N AS QU IC KLY AS

P OS S I B LE B UT YOU CAN’T DR IVE YET

Deanna Skoo-macker’s directions to her house had been from the freeway, so she had assumed I’d be driving. I wish.

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Salthaven is several towns away, near the bay, clear on the other side of Rancho Sans Souci. I figured I should give myself at least an hour to get there on my bike, just in case I got lost or something. So I said I had some things I had to do first, but that I could probably make it by around nine.

“Okay,” she had said, “but I turn into a pumpkin at ten-fifteen.”

Right. These modern girls and their mysterious ways.

Best not to ask. They’re either going to explain things or they’re not, is how I look at it.

Since the whole “Thinking of Suicide?” debacle, I was supposed to tell Little Big Tom and Carol where I was going every time I left the house. Maybe they thought I’d slip up and say “well, Mom, I’m off to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge—oops! I mean . . . ,” and then they’d know to withhold their permission and avert a great American tragedy. In fact, though, I was finding that playing D and D at Sam Hellerman’s house was all the excuse I ever needed.

“Slay an orc with a lightning bolt for me!” said Little Big Tom as I headed out the door.

Now, you’re going to think I’m nuts, but I spent quite a bit of time during the ride over to Salthaven thinking about Timothy J. Anderson and Tit. I mean, I was wild with anticipation over the reunion with the elusive fake Fiona; and I was still reeling from the surprising conclusion to my inept attempt at telephone communication. “You’d better come over, then.” Sounded pretty fucking promising. Great song title, too.

But while one part of my mind was picturing Deanna Schumacher naked, seminaked, outfitted in fake mod and schoolgirl fetish gear, tied to a pole, sitting on a motorcycle, and so forth, another part of my mind was trying to figure out why The Seven Storey Mountain, CEH 1963, had contained a 214

funeral memorial card for a funeral that didn’t appear to have occurred, for a person who didn’t appear to have existed.

If the card wasn’t a funeral card, I couldn’t think what else it might have been for. It was very much like the card for my dad’s funeral, except that it contained a lot less information and no photo. There was a cross on one side; the quotation, date, and location were centered on the other. It didn’t seem like very good printing, and the amateurishness was one of the reasons it looked so creepy and disturbing. But assuming it was for a funeral, why had there been nothing about it in the newspaper? The church would probably have a record of it somewhere, as would the city or county. I’m sure it was possible to track it down, if I had the energy and inclination.

Did I? I was starting to realize that Tit’s code and the mystery of Timothy J. Anderson, as exciting as it had seemed at first, had been distracting me from what I really hoped to learn from all this. I found I didn’t really care all that much about Timothy J. Anderson. What I really wanted was to get an idea of who my dad had been, the kinds of thoughts he had had, the kind of world he had inhabited, things that were still dark to me. I had started out with a simplistic, unquestioned caricature of my dad, the Charles Evan Henderson I had known as an eight-year-old. Now I didn’t even have that. Tit and Timothy J.

Anderson had crowded my dad out of the picture. I realized I had been looking at the memorial card as a kind of sign from beyond, which was pretty nutty. What had I been thinking?

Maybe there was no real message: kids do bizarre things and construct elaborate games to drive away the boredom.

Tit could very well have been playing some nonsensical game with no relation to actual reality, and I was just falling for it decades later, very much like how Little Big Tom misread the Talons of Rage fantasy blades, or how my mom had misread 215

“Thinking of Suicide?” It was weird to think that I was playing the role of the Clueless Adult from the Future, but maybe I kind of was.

The whole thing left me with an empty, lonely feeling. I did know one thing, however: I didn’t much like Tit. There was something nasty about his note and about the fact that he had taken such care to encipher part of it, and had a sort of—what? Gleeful? Yeah, a gleeful, flippant attitude, when the subject matter was pretty somber. And including the ramoning boast in the same breath as the reference to the funeral and to being tied up and whipped—well, this Tit was clearly a weird guy.

Then again, there was Deanna-Fiona’s sexy stomach and her “maybe you’d better come over, then” to look forward to and be nervous about. Why was I obsessing over Timothy J.

Anderson? Under the circumstances, it was a crazy thing to do. I got a bit lost in the (devil-head) labyrinth of plazas, ter-races, caminos, lanes, vistas, circles, and courts, but I finally made it to North del Norte Plaza Circle in Salthaven with nearly an hour to spare before Deanna/Fiona’s pumpkin meter was set to run out at ten-fifteen.